Airlines recruitment takes off again

Turnaround in the aviation industry has led to a fresh round of recruitment under various categories. For instance, Air India Express, the low-cost arm of flag carrier Air India, recently conducted interviews in Kochi for airline attendants. Similarly, private carriers Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways too are in the process of hiring talents under various categories to cater to the growth in air traffic.

An Air India spokesperson said, We recruit staff as and when required. We have just finished the recruitment process for airline attendants at Kochi. The airline has 69 posts vacant in the category. Air India also has to fill up posts for B777-type rated captains and first officers on a contractual basis for five years, for which advertisements are open till January 2011 or until the vacancies are filled up.

Kingfisher Airlines, which is increasing presence in international skies, is looking for marketing and sales professionals to enhance business. The airline, on its website, sought applications for executives in the UK, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and UAE, where it has just started operations. The most perceptible signs of change in trend came last month when Jet Airways started calling up flight attendants it had retrenched in 2008 amid protests. The airline has started calling the retrenched staff with fresh offers. Wadia-Group promoted GoAir's CEO Kaushik Khona said, We have recruited 25 cabin crew staff and 15 professionals in the sales and marketing team to match growth in the airlines network.

Domestic airlines are in a hiring mode since they are either expanding globally or consolidating presence in the domestic skies. Airlines had curtailed their domestic expansion or postponed international plans owing to a dip of nearly 30% in air travel demand in 2008 and during the first half of 2009. Shiv Agarwal, CEO, ABC Consultants, added, Growth in the aviation sector is broadly linked to the growth in the economy. With sustained growth in air traffic and capacity additions, airlines are flying into black. Hence, they are on a recruitment spree.